Spirituality Flashcards
(45 cards)
_____, _____, _____ are words that are often used interchangeably by clients and professionals alike, yet the nursing literature typically distinguishes them as separate concepts.
Spirituality, faith, and religion
Refer to the human tendency to seek meaning and purpose in life, inner peace and acceptance, forgiveness and harmony, hope, beauty, and so forth.
Spirituality
Derives from the Latin word spiritus, which means “to blow” or “to breathe,” and
has come to connote that which gives life or essence to being human.
Spiritual
Nursing Definition: “that most human of experiences that seeks to transcend self and find meaning and purpose through connection with others, nature, and/or a
Supreme Being, which may or may not involve religious structures of traditions”
Spiritual
It generally involves a belief in a relationship with some higher power, creative force, divine being, or infinite source of energy (a person may believe in “God,” “Allah,” the “Great Spirit,” or a “Higher Power”).
Spirituality
Refers to an organized system of beliefs and practices.
It offers means for accessing and expressing spirituality, and provides support for
believers in responding to life’s ultimate questions and challenges.
Religion
Religion offers:
A sense of community bound by common beliefs
The collective study of scripture (the Torah, Bible, Koran, or others)
The performance of ritual
The use of disciplines and practices, commandments, and sacraments
Ways of taking care of the person’s spirit (such as fasting, prayer, and meditation).
A person who doubts the existence of God or a supreme being or believes the existence of God has not been proved.
Agnostic
One without belief in a deity
Atheist
Should be descriptive (not prescriptive: i.e., the following of a set guideline for intervening to resolve a client’s spiritual problem) of ways nurses can offer spiritual support.
Spiritual Care
An intuitive, interpersonal, altruistic, and integrative expression that is contingent on
the nurse’s awareness of the transcendent dimension of life but that reflects the
client’s reality.
At its foundational level, spiritual nursing care is an expression of self.
Begins from a perspective of being with the client in love and dialogue but may emerge into therapeutically oriented interventions that take direction from the client’s religious
or spiritual reality.
Spiritual Nursing Care
Are inner movements, yearnings or experiences; and not problems to be processed.
Spiritual needs
Examples of Spiritual Needs
Needs related to the self:
- Need for meaning and purpose
- Need to express creativity
- Need for hope
- Need to transcend life challenges
- Need for personal dignity
- Need for gratitude
- Need for vision
- Need to prepare for and accept death
Examples of Spiritual Needs
Needs related to others:
- Need to forgive others
- Need to cope with loss of loved ones
Examples of Spiritual Needs
Needs related to the Ultimate Other:
- Need to be certain there is a God or Ultimate Power in the universe
- Need to believe that God is loving, and personally present
- Need to worship
Examples of Spiritual Needs
Needs among and within groups:
- Need to contribute or improve one’s community
- Need to be respected and valued
- Need to know what and when to give and take
Refers to “a disturbance in the belief or value system that provides strength, hope, and
meaning to life”
Spiritual Distress
Factors that contribute to Spiritual Distress:
Physiological Problems
Treatment-related
Situational
Characteristics of Spiritual Distress:
- Expresses lack of hope, meaning and purpose in life, forgiveness of self
- Expresses being abandoned by or having anger toward God
- Refuses interaction with friends, family
- Sudden changes in spiritual practices
- Requests to see a religious leader
- No interest in nature, or reading spiritual literature
Often portrayed as the opposite of spiritual distress.
Manifested by a feeling of being “generally alive, purposeful, and fulfilled”
Spiritual Health or Spiritual Well-being
It refers to the spiritual beliefs or ways of thinking that help people cope with their
challenges.
Religious Coping
SPIRITUAL or RELIGIOUS COPING
- It refers to the spiritual beliefs or ways of thinking that help people cope with their
challenges
- Includes both positive and negative religious coping
_____ – helps clients adapt to illness
_____ – associated with maladaptation.
Thinking that an illness is a punishment and feeling abandoned by God
Positive
Negative
STAGES OF SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT
Characteristics:
Neonates and toddlers are acquiring fundamental spiritual qualities of trust, mutuality, courage, hope, and love. Transition to next stage of faith begins when child’s language and thought begin to allow use of symbolism.
Fantasy-filled, imitative phase when child can be influenced by examples, moods, actions. Child relates intuitively to ultimate conditions of existence through stories and images, the fusion of facts and feelings. Make-believe is experienced as reality (Santa Claus, God as grandfather in the sky)
Child attempting to sort fantasy from fact by demanding proofs or demonstrations of reality. Stories are important for finding meaning and organizing experience. Child accepts stories and beliefs literally. Ability to learn the beliefs and practices of the culture, religion.
Experience of the world now beyond the family unit and spiritual beliefs can aid understanding of extended environment. Generally, conform to the beliefs of those around them; begin to examine beliefs objectively, especially in late adolescence.
0–3 years
3–7 years
7–12 years, even into adulthood
Adolescence
STAGES OF SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT
Characteristics:
Development of a self-identity and worldview differentiated from those of others. The individual forms independent commitments, lifestyle, beliefs, and attitudes. Begins to develop personal meaning for symbols of religion and faith.
Newfound appreciation for the past; increased respect for inner voice; more awareness of myths, prejudices, and images that exist because of social background. Attempts to reconcile contradictions in mind and experience and to remain open to others’ truths.
Able to believe in, and live with a sense of participation in, a nonexclusive community. May work to resolve social, political, economic, or ideological problems in society. Able to embrace life, yet hold it loosely. (Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and Mother Teresa illustrate this stage.)
Young adulthood
Mid-adulthood
Mid- to late adulthood
